This is an opinion put forth by Matthew Paul who works with University at Buffalo. He says an adolescent’s antisocial behavior is related to the brain’s activity rather than hormones (source).
Should the title be “Antisocial behavior in adolescents may have nothing to do with hormones”
An adolescent’s antisocial behavior is most strongly related to the way our culture treats adolescents. We simultaneously infantilize them (the social structure is set up to continue to deprive them of adult participatory engagement and adult levels of freedom for a decade and a half past when our ancestors attained such dignities) and suspect them of dangerous & undesirable activity to the point that any otherwise harmless and unproblematic behavior that is disproportionately popular among people of that age range becomes labeled as an antisocial behavior (whether it be hanging around on park benches or riding skateboards in places no one else was using or milling around harmlessly in the village parking lot). The latter factor all by itself creates a “begging the question” situation, in fact (antisocial behavior in adolescents is caused by behaving of adolescents being perceived as antisocial when adolescents are the ones doing that particular behavior).
I was considered antisocial as a teen. My parent and my teachers and peers commented on it repeatedly. I was just quiet. Still am. It’s not always hormonal or puberty related. Some people live inside their heads.
Antisocial, not introverted.
That too. They specifically called me antisocial because I was introverted. Stupid, I agree. But that was my experience.
What do you mean, “brain activity rather than hormones”? Of course behavior (of any sort) is due to brain activity. But what’s causing that brain activity? Hormones can absolutely be one factor.
And what’s responsible for the change in hormone levels and composition in a human of that age?
Puberty.
Unless there’s an amazingly subtle insight that they’re completely failing to convey, they’re seriously confused about the chain of cause and effect. In a way that’s usually reserved for humor: “It’s not the fall that kills you, it’s the sudden stop at the end.”
I’m not sure it is as cut and dried as the study would like to present. Hormones affect brain function, and while there are very well studied (although still not fully understood) changes that occur in the brain in adolescence, the effects of sex hormones that are produced during puberty will almost certainly cause new activity in the LUST and SEEKING (and probably PLAY and PANIC/GRIEF) systems in the cerebellum which affect perception and behavior on an affective (emotional) level. Learning to cope with the flood of new and complex emotions, as well as the new social scenarios they lead to, is a significant part of adolescence.
And while drawing away from parents and developing an independent identity is part of the so-called “antisocial” behavior there is also a certain amount of, “Leave me alone so I can process these new thoughts and feelings!” Parents who are used to children being dependant and sharing their emotional states may perceive this withdrawal to be “antisocial” when it is really just a natural stage of the development of independence. Children who actually desplay antisocial (i.e. destructive, violent, actively disrespectful, excessively manipulative, or non-empathic behavior) are another class entirely which is indicative of actual emotional or developmental problems.
The Pixar film Inside Out, while not a perfect depiction of the systems of affective development known to modern neuroscience, does a really good job of showing how emotional systems that underly basic identity are challenged by changes in life circumstances and develop during childhood and puberty. I’m waiting for someone to publish a paper in affective neuroscience identifying the literal location of “Boy Band Island” in the female teenage brain. (Maybe they’ll call it the “McCartney Cortex” if the researcher is more classically inclined.)
Stranger
What they are saying is that with hamsters, they start behaving like adolescents after a certain amount of time, regardless of what their hormones are doing. Maybe people are the same.